Original WWE RAW Plans For AOP's Return, Backstage Notes On Vince McMahon Making Changes This Week

As noted, WWE almost brought back The Authors of Pain on this week's RAW for the Tag Team Turmoil match that crowned Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode as the new #1 contenders to RAW Tag Team Champions Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman for a match at WWE Clash of Champions.

In an update, Akam and Rezar were originally scheduled to do well in the match, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Despite the planned strong performance, AOP were set to lose to Roode and Ziggler, but not necessarily in the final part of the match.

We also noted that The Viking Raiders were scheduled to win another squash match on this week's RAW, but that plans were changed and they were added to the eight-team Turmoil match.

The King of the Ring tournament match between The Miz and winner Baron Corbin was originally scheduled to go for around 5 minutes instead of 10 minutes but it was given more time when officials decided on pulling the Vikings squash.

All of these changes at RAW were said to be Vince McMahon calls. It was noted earlier in the week, via PWInsider, that Monday's RAW, from the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, was said to be one of the "smoothest running shows" in several weeks. Besides what was mentioned above, there was said to be very little changes made to the original script.

In other news on Vince from this week's WWE TV, the WWE Chairman also "changed a ton of stuff" for Tuesday's SmackDown from Baton Rouge, and word is that most of this episode was largely put together by Vince on the day of the show.

It was reported on Tuesday that Vince was not backstage in Baton Rouge, but he had been going over the SmackDown script via the phone, working with creative officials. It was reported that the King of the Ring tournament match between Shelton Benjamin and winner Chad Gable was set to go for 12 minutes, but that was changed and the match went just under 4 minutes.

Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

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